At Downtown Library, the City Council Is Learning How to Build a More Civilized Dallas

By Jim Schutze Wed., Jan. 21 2009 at 1:48 PM

Categories: Schutze

From the big seminar at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library today: City council is hearing experts from Canada and Virginia tell them how to do civilized development. The big question, of course: Why would we want to be civilized?

One irony: The Canadian guy told them Vancouver has no freeways at all leading into the central city and enforces a permanent ban on any new highways or street widenings in the city. Today's event is being co-sponsored by the Trinity Trust, a private group whose big accomplishment so far was helping get a freeway built next to the river in the middle of what was supposed to have been a great urban park.

Mayor Tom Leppert, to his credit, is taking copious notes, as evidenced by the photo above. Either that, or he's working on his autobiography. Can't tell which from where I'm sitting.

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Streetcars did come up. The former mayor of Charlottesville, Va., home of UVA, spoke and talked about how they are the smallest city in the country with a planned streetcar, apparently from the The University of Virginia campus to a downtown area. He said the streetcar won't be on the ground for another seven years, but, because developers believe the city means business about it, the values and actual redevelopment along the planned route have gone through the roof, a point he illustrated with some amazing photos. Strictly from a development and tax base perspective, a well-placed streetcar line looks pretty much like a money machine.
Jim, Did streetcars come up as a suggestion? Jim, Please get the streetcar/trolley plans from DART. If there is gonna be stimulus coming, I can scarcely think of a better solution. I would love to know how explicit the plans are. Do the get into suggesting streets and routes? How exhaustive is this study? Hell, I would posit it might make a terrific feature article. You know, that is public information, yet my request seems to be so far afield that it interests no one. But, you know, this is the kinda shoes on the pavement kinda thing that the city and media never seem to facilitate.
Neumann is clueless - period.
Jim, I saw you there taking copious notes as well. I do hope you will write up an article on everything we heard today. I found the speakers to be engaging and the material to be timely. I left feeling inspired and hopeful that we can achieve more walkable urbanism in Dallas. Crafting the built environment is one of the most important responsibilities for our city government, yet those making the decisions in the 9th largest, fastest growing region in the nation, tend to execute policy in line with drivable suburbanism rather than walkable urbanism. Why are we not enacting the will of the power? Why are we ignoring market forces? We need to change course and give folks the walkable urbanism that they want if we intend to be a competitive urban market in the coming decades. Brandon-
Comments of the Cliff dwellers are especially poignant given the item posted higher up here about the collapse of the JPI Trinity development. Hopes for the inner city over time will have far less to do with the big ticket mega-deals that council members love to be in on and far more to do with organic people-voting-with-their-feet development, as in the best of what has happened in Oak Cliff. Nothing new about that I guess. Old East Dallas and Oak Lawn thrived not just without help from City Hall but in spite of active opposition from City hall in the early years. I just don't get how guys like Neumann keep getting elected.
When it comes to being versed, or even casually researching modern city planning, Neumann is clueless. Most of us don't understand why on earth he continues to want to represent an urban district like North Oak Cliff. Every other major city in the US is making incredible strides in pushing for walkable changes to their city...Sadly, Dave appears to be quite happy with a car-centric suburban modeled city.
And who did not bother to attend? Elba Garcia and Dave Neumann, that's who. North Oak Cliff has a big bull's eye on it for developers and these two won't spend one day learning about best practices. Meanwhile local Oak Cliff developers are pushing them to re-zone swathes of the community with only the vaguest understanding of sustainable development.
Who's been to Santiago Chile twice in one year?!
I've been to Vancouver twice in the last year. Wonderful city, but the main peninsula is full of multistory modern apartment buildings. a very densely constructed city and yet there is a lot of commuting. If they even wanted to widen streets or build new highways they would have to look to Robert Moses for inspiration as to how to destroy neighborhoods. Don't know what the Virginians presented but i live in Virginia. Here the state controls all repeat all highway/road construction. Similar to Soviet style central planning. Here the city of Richmond is independent, meaning it is not associated with a county, unlike Dallas which is also a part of Dallas County. Richmond is surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties. Very little growth occurs in Richmond. we have a 10% restuarant tax while the counties have much less. So you can guess where restaurants are. We have some but they are small. Basically Vancouver and Virginia are not good examples for Dallas to be following due to geography (Vancouver) and government (Virginia)